this movie is a gem in its bad badness. an enigma of our day. a big stinking sphinx from the hallucinating gods of elron hubbard's venus offered to make us all feel better about ourselves.
i too submitted myself to the DVD version which includes some hilarous and scary scientologist propaganda in the supplemental material. the commentary (i couldn't stop listening to it until i finally snapped myself out of it and JUST WALKED AWAY) is mind numbing.
the director repeats how this movie was INTENDED to be a comic strip. OK. i'll buy that. i want to believe that. how else can it be explained. but they started work on the SECOND PART while the first was nearing release. not simultaneously. which means they were dumb enough to think the major market would eat it up.
there's an anti-BE website (
http://www.xenutv.com/us/battlefield.htm) that has realvideo of interviews outside of a theater and travolta peddling his movie. people either say they hate it or, i guess figuring they were going to be on a commercial, said it was great.
every time travolta said "ratbrain," and that's a lot, i figured he was talking to me.
silence or i'll vaporize you.
it is the Starcrash or our day times ten. at least hasselhoff (sp?) was a nobody whereas travolta is a confused cultist.
ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS: check roger ebert's "at the movies" review wrap up (also on the site above). "two thumbs down. way down. way way down. way way way down."
and his written review at chicagosuntimes.com:
http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/2000/05/051202.html"Battlefield Earth" is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time."
and
"The director, Roger Christian, has learned from better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he has not learned why."